By drawing on social science perspectives, this course enables you to learn what diversity is, and how to use it to maximize team performance, innovation and creativity. You also learn how to draw out the collective wisdom of diverse teams, handle conflict and establish common ground rules through real-world cases and peer-to-peer discussions. In addition, you discover how to overcome common biases faced in diverse teams. Systems of power, reward and rhetoric are discussed to help you create prosperous teams where differences flourish.

DR

Learning about micro-aggressions changed my life - personally and professio

WC

Sep 01, 2019

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Right on topic for the issues I'm seeing in the workplace

从本节课中

Team Diversity Basics

In the first module, you will learn the essentials of why diversity matters for teams, and why it can be difficult to build diverse teams. We will overview basic concepts of difference, bias, and conflict that will serve as a foundation for later modules.

教学方

Dr. Aviva Legatt

Affiliated Faculty

Derek Newberry, Ph.D.

Lecturer

脚本

According to the study, diversity matters. Organizations that have more diversity tend to financially outperform those that have less diversity. But having diversity on its own is not enough to achieve high performance. So how can diverse teams become more high performing? What are common pain points that arise in diverse teams? How can we overcome conflict and bias on teams? These are some of the questions we will answer in this course. In this module we'll dive right into difficult issues of bias, discrimination and inclusion on teams. If you think you've never been biased or discriminating of someone else, you might want to take a second look. As human beings, we judge each others' trustworthiness in 100 milliseconds. Did you trust me from my first intro? I'm a woman and I look younger than I appear. Do you trust my face, why? Studies show that baby-faced individuals are thought of more honest, naive and trustworthy than others. Scholars at University of Jerusalem tested this theory by watching people's reaction to a fictional peace offer from a Palestinian leader and asking participants if they would accept the offer. They also showed the Palestinian leader's face on a photo. More often than not, when the image of the Palestinian leader was altered to have baby faced features, the peace offer was accepted. In contrasted, the unaltered image often was rejected. Stereotypes and bias are an important matter because they shape our daily interactions, cause conflict, and shape trust between individuals. This is why we must be aware of our own biases when working in a team. They maybe be hidden even from yourself. You might not be aware of the fact that you're treating someone differently than someone else. You might think you're being completely fair when, in fact, you're being completely biased. Recent research reported by Harvard Business Review speaks to this idea of hidden biases on gender in relation to work assignments. One study showed that women in an oil and gas company received fewer challenging departmental work opportunities despite comparable levels of interest in these work opportunities. Managers who behaved with quote benevolent sexism were said to have quote protected women from these assignments. The assignments were instead given to men. Another study showed a different side of benevolent sexism. Offering to help women when the help is not asked for. While you think you might be being helpful, in a team setting, your offer of help may actually be patronizing and undermine someone else's sense of belonging or confidence. This idea of benevolent sexism reminded me of a past situation I personally encountered. A long time ago, I worked with a manager who tried to quote protect me from challenging work even though my performance reviews were consistently strong. When asked why new products and ideas I raised could not go forward, my supervisor said that it was for my protection that certain ideas never get seen by higher ups. My supervisor's behavior was particularly concerning because my colleague, who was lateral to me and happened to be an older white male, had far greater privileges than I when it came to initiating projects and having access to funds for programming. Needless to say, my relationship with the supervisor didn't last long. Would I label this person as someone who routinely dislikes women? Not necessarily, but I do believe this person did provide an unfair advantage, and had deeper levels of trust from my older white male colleague due to unconscious bias. My situation is not unique, this type of hidden bias whether around gender, race or sexuality happens all the time, and it has consequences for employee retention and for burnout. Women in particular are leaving the workforce at higher rates than men. And the reason isn't motherhood, which is the reason that only one in ten women give to leave the workplace, according to research by the International Consortium for Executive Development Research. So what qualities make up an inclusive culture where ideas can come from anywhere? Best practices include the hosting of affinity groups, trainings on hidden bias, and channels for employees of all levels to provide input. To learn more about these topics, you'll learn from experts like Ann Tiao, Andreas Castro San Malloa, Torgan Richardson and Harvey Floyd II. All of these interviewees have firsthand experience in navigating issues of bias and inclusion on teams and enhancing performance in various global and domestic contexts. Stay tuned.